Non-Game content eating up memory

[Brogan44]

Dear CoH Developers and Techs,

I believe I have a legitimate complaint to added game content which I'm sure others think about but care not to step up and say anything. I use an older computer which I've had since CoH came out years ago. I use 32bit on my computer. I am a huge fan of enhancement additions to improve the game experience. I enjoy CoH very, very much! BUT!.....what use is a Dance Party area or eating different kinds of foods such as a hot dog or a sprinkle donut? (don't get me wrong, DJ Zero and that area has it uses) Does it help me defeat my Nemesis and his minions? I think not.  All these feature eat up memory and have nothing to do with being a Super Hero/Super Villain. My solution/idea is this...Can a separate shard be created/used for those that like that sort of thing? They can go there, create a character and socialize/dance/eat a sprinkle donut, etc. to there hearts content. I realize the solution for me is buy a better computer...but not right now. (Once I get a better job or a raise I will certainly save for one). I am tired of the "game ran out of memory and will have to shut down" pop-up windows. I know CoH doesn't have oodles of money for expansion for such things but how about using the Beta area for this idea?

 

What does everyone else think of this?

 

Thank you for any consideration,

 

 

 

[Shenanigunner]

I think all the details are what make the game.

 

If your essential argument is the very tired, overwrought one that nothing that doesn't benefit leveling and associated tracks is worthwhile... well.

 

We all ran CoX on those same computers, twenty years ago. Just dial the graphics back to what was usual then, probably a little better, and try to appreciate the game in a broader sense than just combat-2-level.

[Rudra]

What I'm not understanding is things like the PDP and Pocket D are just maps if you aren't there. If you are running out of memory running the game, I'm pretty sure the emotes and zone maps aren't what is doing it. Like @Shenanigunner says, have you tried dialing back your graphics settings to legacy?

 

(Edit: Also, I have to point out that if it is in the game, it is game content. There is no such thing as non-game content in a video game when it comes to content the game itself provides.)

Edited February 25 by Rudra

[Shenanigunner]

To expand on that, part of the reason teh game is broken into zones (unlike some newer games that are 'borderless') is that only the map you are in needs to be actively loaded, and sometimes then only a radius of detail elements are loaded. CoX was designed for much more limited systems than, likely, even yours and has fairly efficient memory and asset management. (It sometimes seems a little constricted to those of us with modern-spec systems; zoning every five minutes gets tedious. 🙂

 

But as @Rudra notes, the whole game is not loaded at once. Only the elements you are currently 'experiencing'; the rest are no part of loaded image maps, alt details, etc.

 

If you're getting actual memory leakage, slow loss of available memory until your system acts up, that's likely some other app or OS issue. CoX doesn't have any general memory-leak problems (as some apps and games do).

[Lunar Ronin]

9 minutes ago, Shenanigunner said:

If you're getting actual memory leakage, slow loss of available memory until your system acts up, that's likely some other app or OS issue. CoX doesn't have any general memory-leak problems (as some apps and games do).

 

Oh, there's definitely memory leaks in City of Heroes.  Try doing a Hamidon or Rikti mothership raid.  Heck, I've experienced CoH ballooning up to 15 GBs of RAM just from fire farming a few weeks ago, and up to 6 GBs of RAM from doing an Admiral Sutter TF last week.

[Shenanigunner]

7 minutes ago, Lunar Ronin said:

Oh, there's definitely memory leaks in City of Heroes.  Try doing a Hamidon or Rikti mothership raid.  Heck, I've experienced CoH ballooning up to 15 GBs of RAM just from fire farming a few weeks ago, and up to 6 GBs of RAM from doing an Admiral Sutter TF last week.

 

...well, except for those. 😄 (Thx)

[temnix]

I can say that I'm in exactly the same position - an old, very old computer, the same one on which I played CoH twenty years ago. And I also get those "Out of memory" windows and crashes. The worst is when there are many heroes with special effects around. But even though I also complained about them, I've never suggested separating away details that are not strictly power-oriented, because that's impossible and because they are much more important than the powers, in fact. They and a game world modeled on real life are CoH's greatest strengths. All other online games have powers, spells to cast and so on, but their worlds are abstract. And I realize that it's my fault that I can't buy even a computer of moderate strength. Even of weak strength - that would be sufficient to run CoH. Why am I using the same computer 20 years later, and why shouldn't others enjoy their auras and special graphics-intensive features? As it happens, I have a second computer, also a laptop, with a better processor, videocard and memory, though it has serious problems of its own. By today's standards even that notebook is a weak machine. I had it for ten years, if not more. But it lets me play CoH without any stuttering at all, perfectly smoothly even in a crowd of heroes, at default graphics settings. Increasing the quality of shadows and the level of detail started to strain the machine, and its problems came up much sooner, but the point is that requirement-wise it takes getting very little above the absolute baseline to enjoy the game.

 

By the way, for others who may be reading: there is no graphics option to increase the maximum view distance, is there?

[Rudra]

38 minutes ago, temnix said:

By the way, for others who may be reading: there is no graphics option to increase the maximum view distance, is there?

Well, visscale changes your render distance and you can use the mouse scroll wheel to zoom in or out. Otherwise I'm not sure what you are asking?

[Shenanigunner]

44 minutes ago, temnix said:

By the way, for others who may be reading: there is no graphics option to increase the maximum view distance, is there?

 

Visscale is your friend here. I think the menu calls it something generic and is limited in adjustment range.

 

There are four or five settings that affect distance. Oddly enough, we just had a discussion of them with notes for balancing between visuals and framerate and using a bind to lock down your preferred settings, since they seem to get nudged by the server or reset fairly often.

 

Look for the discussion VISSCALE blah blah something over in General Discussions. Should be in the first page or so.

[Shenanigunner]

BTW, you could extend your system life with a used-but-new-to-you video card upgrade. Get something a gen or two newer that is still compatible with your system, and you can probably improve CoX and everything else graphics-based for some very modest amount.

[biostem]

Lower all the settings and also try the /usetexenvcombine launch parameter if that still isn't enough.  I've practically run the game on a potato using a combination of those settings.  Maintaining separate active versions of the game as "live" simply isn't practical.

Edited February 26 by biostem

[A.I.D.A.]

I think the bigger problem here is using a computer from 2008 and thinking it's going to be able to run anything in 2024.

 

Not gonna find much sympathy for ancient potato PCs still running a 32-bit OS for some unfathomable reason.

 

Edited February 26 by A.I.D.A.

[WanderingAries]

I vaguely remember Playing CoX on 32bit laptops originally (Win XP?) and dealing with the fact that it Would crash if the game tried to use more than say 1.5 ~ 1.75 Gb of my 4 Gb of RAM. As for "old computers", I'm STILL using the PC I built ~2010 for CoX, but it's 64bit, so I won't run into the same restrictions at this point. Hell, I can run Win11 on this thing. 😛 I know that not everyone (Read: "Me Too" for quite a while) has the budget for a new system, but you could quite easily pick up a used computer (Old W@H business desktops are good) that has at least the core hardware that's a marginal step up for not too much. Maybe check with a local repair shop to see if they have anything they could coble together from spare parts.

[Shenanigunner]

21 hours ago, A.I.D.A. said:

I think the bigger problem here is using a computer from 2008 and thinking it's going to be able to run anything in 2024.

Not gonna find much sympathy for ancient potato PCs still running a 32-bit OS for some unfathomable reason.

 

Eh, a little harsh, but yes, a 15-16 year old system that may not have been peak-of-the-gaming-wave then is into obsolescence UNLESS the game is dialed back to what that system could manage in 2010. Expecting to run any of the added UI features or at higher resolutions/settings is not reasonable.

 

I spend a lot of time in forums for complex development tools, and there's a similar and persistent class of users who are furious they can't run WhoopTeDo/2024 (1) without paying for an upgrade and (2) on the same system that's run WTD/2009 just fine all these years, thank ya very much. CoX at least has the advantage of being largely the same software as then and should run fine on any non-glitchy system of the era... but only within the scope of how it played in that era, yer welcome a whole bunch. 🙂

[Greycat]

22 hours ago, A.I.D.A. said:

I think the bigger problem here is using a computer from 2008 and thinking it's going to be able to run anything in 2024

 

 

Older than that, if they're *really* (I doubt it...) running the system they had "when COH came out." That would be a single core chip of some flavor (Athlon X2s didn't come out until ... 2005? 2006?) - Think I was still running a 1 Ghz Thunderbird and 4 Mb Matrox Mystique at the time.  It would also be having issues with modern websites.

 

You can find cast-off business PCs and old video cards - still old by current standards but *far* newer and more capable than that - for well under $100. So... yeah.

[lemming]

I used to run CoX on a 2012 Dell Laptop.   It was doable, but I did have to turn a lot of graphics down.  (But I remember similar back on live until I upgraded my system)

[biostem]

On 2/25/2024 at 3:57 PM, Brogan44 said:

What does everyone else think of this?

Could you post your system specs?  Maybe we can provide practical solutions for you...

[Troo]

On 2/25/2024 at 12:57 PM, Brogan44 said:

What does everyone else think of this?

 

On 2/25/2024 at 1:26 PM, Lunar Ronin said:

Oh, there's definitely memory leaks in City of Heroes.

 

On 2/25/2024 at 1:15 PM, Shenanigunner said:

CoX was designed for much more limited systems than, likely,

 

It should not be a heavy program as it was originally designed for something with min specs like:

Intel Pentium® III 800 MHz, 256 MB RAM, 32MB Video Card and could run on Windows 98.

 

..with a 56k modem.

 

 

 

Edited February 27 by Troo

[Shenanigunner]

15 hours ago, Troo said:

It should not be a heavy program as it was originally designed for something with min specs like:

Intel Pentium® III 800 MHz, 256 MB RAM, 32MB Video Card and could run on Windows 98.

 

..with a 56k modem.

 

True, but it's not a simple gauge. The primary engine etc. might need only those specs or a little more to chug along, but there definitely seem to be weak areas that do not process heavy graphic demands well, even on vastly more powerful cards. Look at FSAA — on many modern games, I can ratchet that up to 16 with only modest framerate hits. Go past 4 on CoX and it's intolerable.

 

That is, some aspects are full power on older systems and fine on modern ones, but some old code and such still chokes things if pushed too hard, with high settings or a mothership raid or 64 newbies demonstrating how many particle effects they can show Ms. Liberty at once. 🙂

[WanderingAries]

1 hour ago, Shenanigunner said:

 

True, but it's not a simple gauge. The primary engine etc. might need only those specs or a little more to chug along, but there definitely seem to be weak areas that do not process heavy graphic demands well, even on vastly more powerful cards. Look at FSAA — on many modern games, I can ratchet that up to 16 with only modest framerate hits. Go past 4 on CoX and it's intolerable.

 

That is, some aspects are full power on older systems and fine on modern ones, but some old code and such still chokes things if pushed too hard, with high settings or a mothership raid or 64 newbies demonstrating how many particle effects they can show Ms. Liberty at once. 🙂

 

That and the game has evolved over time. IDK where those specs came from (original or updated), but I'm sure the min specs had some vertical creep by the time we got to sunset.